Corona-zona

  On Monday CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said , “we have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared.”  She added that she is having recurring feelings of "impending doom." What's scaring her? An uptick in the number of states that are experiencing an increase in COVID-19 infections, after a couple months of decreases almost everywhere. It's especially concerning given that increasing numbers of Americans are being vaccinated. To show where the problems lie, Corona-zona Labs made a map using data from the CDC Socrata API. For each state we retrieved new cases for the seven days preceding March 22 and March 29, normalized these to represent new cases per 100K people, averaged the values and subtracted the value for the 22nd from the value for the 29th. This yields a positive number in states where cases are increasing and a negative number in states where cases are decreasing. Clearly...

  Arizona recently  decided  to open vaccinations to all Arizonans 16 and older. Accordingly, more staffing is needed at Arizona's vaccination sites.  Hands On Phoenix, a nonprofit that organizes volunteers for various projects, is seeking people to help staff the sites. Their website lists available volunteer slots for Phoenix Municipal Stadium, State Farm Stadium, Dexcom in South Mesa, and Yuma.  Non-clinical volunteer roles are in three areas: check-in support, data confirmation support, and logistical support, though it doesn't appear that you get to pick. Also, they note that the work is outdoors, and requires standing/moving for the majority of a six-hour shift.  The group says that volunteer interest has "taken a nose dive" now that vaccinations are available to the general population. That is probably because if you volunteer, you get a jab at the end of your shift. Now that people can get a shot without volunteering, the incentive is reduced....

  In a development that should surprise absolutely no one, a black market is flourishing for fake vaccination certificates and tests results, and probably fake vaccines.  Cyber-security firm Check Point has released an analysis showing a booming business in all three, with "Dark Web" advertisements up 300% in the past three months. According to their report: Fake COVID-19 negative tests can be had from various sellers for about $25 Fake vaccination certificates can be bought for $250 Various vaccines can be purchased for $500-$1000 per dose. Fake Records The tests and certificates are so easy to fake I'm surprised anyone would spend money to buy them.  My test results come to me as an email.  It would be child's play to change the name on mine to someone else's.  There is an "id number" and "order number" that could reveal the name had been tampered with. But the average consumer of test results (say, an airline) would have no way to check up ...

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers for the week ending March 27 Red numbers, especially in new cases and positive tests, are not what we want to see right now. Also though there is a statewide new cases decrease, it is negligible.  This could be an indication of the leading edge of a new wave of infections that experts have been worried about.    This coincides with news from Friday that the South African variant has been detected in Arizona. This news comes about two weeks after ADHS reported that the Brazilian variant had been detected . Despite this, people are out in numbers, eating in restaurants, all without masks, basically acting like the pandemic is over. With increasing infections and more contagious variants, this is a worrisome situation. The vaccine accelerometer for this week is also disappointing: Increases for both categories are about half what they were last week. A similar deceleration happened four weeks ago.  But then there was a good...

  Today's post is by Corona-zona Senior Canada Correspondent Salishsailor A few weeks ago, Canada was ranked #44 in number of vaccine shots administered per population among the 84 nations with over a million people.  Today it comes in at #36 . Canada is up to #19 , if you count just shots given per 100 persons. [ Which you should  whenever you're making comparisons—Editor ]  The upward curve in number of vaccinations is tracking the US curve but remains at about half the US daily rate—0.37 per 100 population versus the US rate of 0.74, according to Our World in Data . But with the Canadian plan for massively increasing vaccine availability, every adult could be vaccinated by Canada Day (usually celebrated on July first).  Aside from vaccination rates, though, Canada appears to have the edge on all other nations in future immunity testing.  A research team at the University of Toronto led by Dr. Igor Staglijar have used the enzyme that light...

  One day after the terrible massage parlor shootings  earlier last week, a study appeared in the American Journal of Public Health. It links the former president's use of the phrase "Chinese Virus" in a tweet to an uptick in the #chinesevirus hashtag on Twitter.  The paper must have been under review and in production for quote some time. It's quite the coincidence that its publication coincided with the shootings of multiple Asians. The implication is that T****'s rhetoric contributed to a recent surge in anti-Asian racism. To be perfectly clear, I think he is a racist and that his rhetoric no doubt is a contributor. But we have to be careful not to over-interpret the results. The study compared tweets containing the neutral hashtag #covid19 to those containing the racist hashtag #chinesevirus. Comparing the week before T****'s March 16 tweet to the week after, they found a large increase in the number of tweets with the latter compared to the former, and a...

  I remember when toilet paper stock in my local store began to shrink about this time last year. I saw people in the checkout line with their carts full of toilet paper. I  thought they were being stupid and resolved not to participate in the stupidity. Then it totally disappeared (along with almost all the other paper products) and was gone for quite some time. I came dangerously close to running out before some packages started to trickle back in. The disappearance was not the result of supply chain problems or any actual shortage. It was the result of panic buying . As soon as people calmed down stock  was rebuilt. Well now we might be on the verge of another toilet paper shortage.  This time it is supply-chain related, though not the way you might think. It turns out that most of the wood pulp used to make toilet paper comes from Brazil . They can make plenty of pulp, but for it to be turned into toilet paper it has to be shipped here. The problem is there is a ...

  Medical service workers were, rightly, the very first group to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. When in medical centers, they also work at places that value and have the capability to perform regular testing.   Accordingly, two studies are out in the New England Journal of Medicine showing some of the first real-world evidence of vaccine efficacy.  And they are bad news for SARS-COV-2 . Both tracked infection rates at medical centers after one and two doses of vaccine.  one study at the University if Texas Southwest Medical center tracked employees after they received one or two doses of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.  Here are their results: Another study at the University of California health systems in San Diego and Los Angeles did the same thing.  They presented their data a little differently and in table form.  I converted their number to bar charts: Both these studies show that the vaccines are absolutely crushing infe...

The Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines are facing challenges. This is a bit of a setback because both have much easier storage requirements (normal refrigeration rather than cold storage) and long shelf-life.  J&J, in addition, requires only one jab, making it ideal for populations where reliably scheduling a second dose is difficult (for example remote or homeless people). Johnson & Johnson J&J has received emergency use authorization in the U.S.  However, there are questions about whether it is as good as the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.  The Mayor of Detroit rejected an allocation because "Moderna and Pfizer are the best and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure residents of the city of Detroit get the best." He is referring to a lower efficacy of 67%  in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 in clinical trials, compared to the mid-90% efficacy of the other vaccines. But public health officials call that a...

  Yesterday that Associated Press released an interesting story asking why states' performance on vaccine rollouts is so uneven.  The answer seems to be focus . To see what they're talking about, here is the latest data on percentage of the population fully vaccinated from the Johns Hopkins dashboard : The low is in the District of Columbia at 9.82%, and the high is Alaska with 19.86%.  The average for all states is 12.79%. Our neighbor New Mexico is second highest, with 19.3%. Arizona is a respectable 8th place with 15.67%.  This is the first time I can remember seeing our state ranked so high on a good-performance list.   The AP story contains a graph and a trend line relating the percent of the population eligible to the doses administered per 100K.  They don't give the the slope of that line, but my guesstimate is that every additional percent of eligibility leads to a decrease of about 40 doses per 100K population. The story makes a pretty strong...

Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers for the week ending March 20: As last week, the numbers are headed in the right direction.  But also as last week some of the statewide numbers are questionable because of reporting irregularities including at least one negative case count.  Last week this caused an overestimation of the statewide case count (last week I reported it as 15, and this week the CDC data shows it was 13.4). Here is the vaccination accelerometer :   After decelerating last week, we are accelerating this week, at around the same pace as two weeks ago.  About 15% of us are vaccinated and about 39% of us have had one jab. That higher number is important because the first dose offers around 80% efficacy in preventing severe disease. This may be why our case numbers are looking so good. More light at the end of the tunnel. Header Image by  Gerd Altmann  from  Pixabay  

 I'm a little pressed for time today, so in place of a regular post I recommend, for your reading enjoyment, an excellent essay from New York Magazine. It's entitled How the West Lost COVID . It's lengthy, but well done and well worth the read.  It asks the question, why did The U.S. and Europe fare so badly while countries in Asia, Oceana, and Africa got and kept the pandemic under control? I won't give any spoilers. But it has a lot to do with a feckless political culture in the West, and it offers some potential lessons learned for next time. Image by  Gerhard G.  from  Pixabay  

  The CDC has released new guidance suggesting that kids can be as close as three feet apart when in school. The previous standard was six feet. I have always thought that putting kids together in poorly ventilated classrooms for long periods, no matter what the separation, was just asking for trouble. Kids are more likely to have asymptomatic infections . They travel back and forth between home and school, making classrooms potential distribution points for infection. The thing is, there is no evidence of this.  The CDC says "[b]ased on the data available, in-person learning in schools has not been associated with substantial community transmission." Now an just-published study shows there is no difference between three and six feet either. It's a very thorough study of 266 school districts comparing those that maintained six or more feet of separation with those that maintained three or more feet of separation. It controlled for a range of factors including other as...

  As I noted earlier this week , public health experts are concerned that a new wave of infections may be hitting the U.S., and that hotspots are reemerging.  I wanted to look into this further so I went to see what information the CDC has on offer. I found exactly what I was looking for in the Community Profile Report . It's a data geek's wet dream of maps showing every conceivable measure by county, and how those measures have changed over the last seven days. They present one map, the "area of concern continuum by county."  It boils down all the indicators—new cases, positive tests, deaths, hospitalizations, etc.—to "describe communities as they progress through stages of the epidemic."  Here is the map for March 16: Congratulations to Kansas.  Also, the report notes that Missouri just dumped a bunch of backlog data, making it look worse than it is.   Otherwise most states have some problem areas.  Of particular concern are the hotspots in the ...

  In an earlier post , I described Russian disinformation efforts denigrating Western vaccines and promoting its Sputnik V product, especially in Mexico and South America. Now another worry is China. According to Foreign Affairs , China is attempting to give or sell vaccine to countries in Asia in order to reap benefits in terms of what is called public diplomacy .  The idea is that if China can deliver the most life-saving vaccine it will gain prestige. It may even make recipient countries feel indebted enough that they will look the other way when China tries to grab contested territory in the South China Sea.   As reported in the Foreign Affairs article, China's response to such talk is: what, us? "In promoting cooperation in combating the pandemic, China does not seek any geopolitical goals or have any economic interest considerations, and it has never attached any political strings." M'kay. It's probably just a coincidence that they are prioritizing lower- ...

In previous posts I commented on the roll-your-own system being used to schedule vaccinations in Arizona. Now that vaccinations are accelerating, states everywhere are experiencing problems scheduling them, according to an article last week in the New York Times.   In an earlier post , I explained that states have had to fend for themselves on vaccine scheduling because Trump's CDC used a no-bid contract to hire an unqualified firm (Deloitte, which specializes in accounting) to develop a system that could be used by states. It was terrible and few states wanted to use it, so they developed their own or use one one called PrepMod , developed by a Maryland nonprofit.   Well it seems that there are problems everywhere.  States are using "more than half a dozen appointment scheduling systems, from tools used by federal, state and local agencies to the software employed by private hospitals and pharmacies to rudimentary solutions like SignUpGenius," according to NY...

  For some time now, public health officials in the U.S. have been worried about a another wave of COVID-19. Their concern is based on two things.   First, infections are down from the holiday surge. U.S. vaccination rates  accelerating , with the U.S. approaching one-third of its population having at least one vaccination. So of course  marshmallow-eating state officials are recklessly removing mitigation measures despite infection rates as high as the peak of the summer surge. They're taking their foot off the brake just when it looks like we might have virus beat. Now people are crowding into  Las Vegas  and the  beaches in Florida .   Second, there are new variants  popping up all over the place that appear to make the virus more contagious and virulent. There are mixed messages about whether these variants are also better able to evade immune responses from previous infections or vaccinations. Some reports say they are ,...

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers for the week ending March 13: As with last week, the numbers are all headed in the right direction. Maricopa County cases show a slightly larger decrease than last week, as do statewide cases and positive test percent. The statewide numbers, and possibly the Maricopa County numbers too, should be taken with a grain of salt. I get the data from CDC but it lags behind by two days.  So to get the "yesterday" average I have to get the total cases from the ASU Biodesign dashboard (which gets its data from ADHS) on Saturday. The issue is that it listed negative new case numbers for Maricopa, LaPaz, and Graham. Either those counties boarded a time machine and prevented infection of several of their citizens, or there are more screwups with data reporting to (or at) ADHS. Assuming the latter, I substituted the 7-day trailing average value for those counties. That value was still negative for LaPaz (I counted it as having zero new  cases ye...

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—who allegedly has his own problems following the law—is suing Travis County, and the state capitol it encompasses, Austin. Those jurisdictions are refusing to to comply with an order from their marshmallow-eating governor to rescind all pandemic restrictions, including mask ordinances. This is just so messed up. First, public health experts uniformly agree that the Texas governor's move is reckless . Travis County and Austin officials are just doing what they think is right to protect the health and safety of their citizens. Paxton is basically suing to force those officials to endanger their citizens. Second, once upon a time, Republicans like Paxton (and Abbott) were all about devolving power and championing states' rights . This is the exact same thing, only one level down. Apparently it's only important to devolve power until you're the one wielding the power and the subordinate entities make decisions you don't like. Third...

  Remember about a month ago, which in the pandemic fever-dream seems like a year ago? Most states were in their 1A vaccination groups, which included medical personnel, emergency responders, and old people living in care homes. People were trying to game the system to get those shots. Vaccine tourists were heading for Florida.  Anything goes there and they would jab anybody who showed up, especially if they were wealthy donors to the Republican party.  Vaccine chasers were going to low income areas trying to snag shots intended for underserved communities. People were dressing up as old people to cut in line.  What a difference a month makes. Last night President Biden announced that we're way ahead of schedule on his vaccination plan, with 100 million jabs expected in 60 days instead of 100.   Here is a national version of the vaccine accelerator I've been doing weekly for Arizona: I produced this using data from the CDC dashboard . I took the daily...

  One day last summer, I was washing dishes and noticed some pain in my fingertip. I looked at it and there was a small cut. I assumed I had accidentally nicked myself with a knife. I applied some liquid bandage to cover it, and didn't give it another thought. Then a week or so later, I noticed a similar cut on my thumb, but this time I hadn't been in proximity to knives. Because they are on my fingertips, these little cuts hurt like hell, especially when I get hand sanitizer—a.k.a cut finder —in there.  The same thing has happened to a number of my friends, and it turns out that we are victims of skin fissures . They are caused by dry skin, and are especially common on fingertips because the skin there is less elastic than elsewhere. From what I've been able to learn, the dryness could be caused by atopic dermatitis (eczema) but might also be due to less dramatic causes.  Since this just started happening over the past year, I wondered if it could be pandemic related....

Last Friday a group of COVIDiots held a mask-burning in Boise, the state capitol. Not content to merely be stupid themselves, these people got their kids in on the act, teaching them to be stupid as well. Nice!  There was a Facebook post claiming such an event in another Idaho town, but the post was gone by the time I got there.   The organizer of the event, the wife of a state legislator, was quoted as saying We're not against face masks. You know, some people might need to protect themselves. There are certain portions of the population that are elderly ... they have issues. For healthy-bodied people, we want to go back to work. Our livelihoods have been put in jeopardy because of all the executive orders and mandates. Hmm.  I'm not quite sure how you claim not to be against face masks when you're sponsoring a mask burning event.  Also, nobody's livelihood is placed in jeopardy because of a mask mandate. Twitter users were generally  horrified ...

  Last Thursday an item crossed my news feed entitled The CDC's Mask Mandate Study: Debunked . We here at Crona-zona are generally pro-mask; however, we are also open to persuasion. So, I decided to look into the claims made in the article. Its target is the CDC's  Morbidity and Mortality Monthly Repor t published in February, which concluded that mask mandates reduced COVID-19 hospitalizations. The third paragraph offers sarcastic  faux  praise of the CDC for publishing an erratum correcting the initial version of the report. It was admirable that the CDC did this, said the author, because the first version was "plagued with inaccuracies."  Even with corrections, the report is no good, according to the  fourth paragraph: " En face , CDC’s conclusion on mandates might appear to make sense unless one is familiar with the scientific data pertaining to the ineffectiveness of masking for prevention of the spread of Covid-19." In other words, it makes sense, but...